FCHV: 480-Mile Range Fuel Cell Vehicle from Toyota
Toyota has made some great progress with fuel-cell vehicles lately, and it’s just tested the newest version of it’s next generation fuel-cell vehicle, the FCHV.
The hydrogen fuel-cell car has a reported range of a whopping 480 miles! In tests, it was able to make a trip from Osaka to Tokyo, a 350 miles trip, and finished with 30% of it’s tank left.
While a lot of this range is based on a large tank (about twice as big as it’s predecessor), Toyota has made great strides in efficiency as well, improving 25% over the previous model.
A 480-mile range is a great advancement in fuel-cell vehicles, as it approaches the range of modern hybrid car. Just doing some quick math, we see that a 45mpg 2008 Honda Civic Hybrid, with a 12.3 gallon tank, has a maxiumi potential range of about 553 miles.
So it appears hydrogen has finally reached the efficiency of modern gas vehicles. Now that the technology is finally here, the infrastructure is now the biggest hurdle to a consumerized version, but we’re on our way!
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[...] There’s a lot of buzz around hydrogen fuel-cells, but until now it’s been mostly focused on cars. [...]
This is yet another example of the progress that is being made with fuel cells. Some will try to make you believe that fuel cells are decades away, but that is a myth.
For a discussion of that and other hydrogen myths, take a look at “The Hype Against Hydrogen”:
http://hydrogendiscoveries.wordpress.com/2007/09/24/the-hype-against-hydrogen-setting-the-record-straight-on-six-hydrogen-myths-perpetuated-by-joseph-romm/